Due to the inclement weather the UW-La Crosse men’s tennis team opened up it’s home season in the Mitchell Fieldhouse this past Friday where UW-L dominated defeated the overmatched Lawrence University Vikings 9-0. With the victory the Eagles are now 8-7 on the year, the loss dropped the Vikings record to 500 at 6-6. The Eagles started the year ranked 13th in the country by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, but lost six of their first seven matches to start with a disappointing 1-6 record due in large part to a tough schedule that saw the Eagles face many ranked teams. However the Eagles found themselves during their spring trip in Orlando, Florida winning their first four matches, before falling in their fifth and final match of the trip to Bethel with a score of four to five. And with the drubbing of Lawrence University, UW-L is now winners of seven of their last eight matches.

For the Eagles every singles player, with the exception of Senior Tony Mirasola, won in straight sets. Playing at one singles, Mirasola, after dropping the first set 4-6 to the Vikings David Jumes, the senior then came back and won the next set 6-1 before completing the comeback in the third set tiebreaker 10-7. Other single winners include Junior Austin Stefanich at two singles (6-1,6-2), Freshman Kyle Wogahn at three singles (6-0,6-0), four singles Sophomore Matt Lindsay (6-4,6-1), five singles sophomore Joey Schneider (6-0,6-0), and six singles Junior Simon Brandt rounded out the singles with a (6-1,6-0) victory.

Every doubles team for UW-L won easily as well led by the number one doubles team of Mirasola and Woghan who took care of business with an 8-1 victory over the Vikings doubles team of David Jumes and Brian DeCorte. The number two doubles team of Lindsay and Schneider won (8-4) and the three doubles duo of Sophomore Joey Shubert and Freshman Sam Gowan won (8-5).
The Eagles will return to action on Sunday, April 3 to versus Luther College (Iowa) at the Winona (Minn.) Tennis Center. The Eagles will return home and host both Edgewood College (Wisc.) and University of Northwestern (Minn.) on April 9 before closing out their regular season at the University of Oshkosh on April 23. The Eagles will close out the season facing rivals UW-Eau Claire, UW-Whitewater and UW-Oshkosh.